Zuma Dogg's Overview of LAUSD "Annual Order of Business"

First of all, again, congratulations to LAUSD Superintendent David Brewer for delivering the finest, world-class speech I have seen delivered publicly at this year's LAUSD Annual Meeting. See story here Whether of not the goal of transforming LAUSD is an accomplishable goal will remain to be seen. But I don't think you are going to be able to find anyone who is able to articulate what it will take to get the job done. Brewer convinced Dogg that he knows what to do, has a plan and method to achieve the goal. Let's hope it's the goal is achieveable in the first place. And if it is, at least I believe we have the best possible leader for this most important challenge.

ZUMA DOGG'S OVERVIEW OF LAUSD ANNUAL ORDER OF BUSINESS/STATE OF THE DISTRICT

As mentioned in my previous articles on Deming (as published in ‘94’s "Quality Digest"), recent LA Weekly article on "SCAG" (Southern California Association of Governments) and blogging, most of the high-quality jobs the previously available to college graduates have left the region and the manufacturing industry has slipped overseas to Asia and China. (Did you see recent news reports that China is now #3 economic superpower, surpassing Germany?)

That leaves the U.S. and especially Southern California in a strategy position it hasn’t been in for quite some time, if ever in the industrial era: The under dog position. The U.S. and as I will refer to for purposes of this audience, California, must look around and say, " How do we rebound, now that we allowed it to get away from us, and we are left with the low-quality, low-income angle.

In other words, how do we regain the ground we lost to oversea economies that took Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s 14 Point plan, implemented it, and now has the U.S. scrambling to keep its society above water.

It starts at the top. It’s a prevailing philosophy. Successful management, like the type responsible for turning the manufacturing tables on the U.S. by implementing "quality and productivity" on the job (like Japanese automobiles and electronics manufacturing) would never front-end load management contracts that end up putting inappropriately excessive amounts of project money into salaries of managers and their perks and not enough into the public project, itself, to get the job done. Then the politicians come back and ask for more money though bonds and taxes.

So if you are operating from the premise of, "Well gee, all the high-end, college type jobs have gone overseas along with the manufacturing that left a long time ago, how do we make due with what’s left? The lower-paying, "lower-quality" jobs. (That term is not an insult. That’s how government and economic types categorize it. "high-income", "low-income", "high-quality jobs" (higher education, higher skilled, higher paying, higher status), "low quality jobs" (lower education, lower skilled lower payer, lower status).

However, given California’s position in this new global economy, the lines are beign blurred between what constitutes "high skill"/"low skill"; and what level of education you need to make what is considered to be "higher paying" money. (Shortage of vocation workers like electrical workers at DWP has raised the pay.)

COLLEGE READY KIDS?

So just as LAUSD has a 50% dropout rate as it is, with more and more English learners coming into the system that before, there is a lot of LAUSD "order of business" relating to preparing kids to be college ready.

Although this is an ambitious and admirable goal, and of course we need a certain percentage of LAUSD students to continue on to college (the career of further education to fill the jobs requiring that added level of skill and knowledge), it should not be the goal of LAUSD to prepare all kids for college.

The goal should be to prepare all kids for graduation and if you have to prepare them for college, the added raising of the bar will actually increase the drop out rate as a whole new level of students are not able to rise to the higher level of achievement, because you have not yet fixed the system for them.

The current Villaraigosa-backed majority school board, under Monica Garcia, has an overly ambitious agenda for a board that just got started and doesn’t have the answers to the questions that will allow them to provide the actual solutions that will actually improve the district.

However, although they are biting off more than they should regarding the policy (a full streamroll ahead approach)/already raising the bar and making it more challenging and demanding for students) – you should be doing EVERYTHING to improve/fix the system for the students and parents! Make no demand until you have provided the environment and system (method) to achieve such goal.

Some basic examples:

Monica Garcia should let Superintendent David Brewer make a new public announcement, (under this new annual "order of business") to all parents, students and teachers that transformation is on the way. One leader is now in charge of this transformation and will be working with the school board to achieve new levels of heightened student achievement and increased graduation rates. And request input from all interested parties, from wherever it may come from.

Empower everyone on the job in the district from tree trimmer to school board president to use common sense and life-experience to do their best job, and let management know how they can help you do a better job/improve.

For example, maybe the gym teacher suggests moving classes to after lunch, when the kids have more energy to burn, rather than right before lunch when they are ready to drop because no one eats a good breakfast. Maybe a principal that tells teachers, "Hey no mid-term exams the day after American Idol finals. Kids won't study, and overall test scores will drop." (Based on what the teacher learned last year.)

Let common sense prevail, wherever legally possible. Knowledge comes from everyone within the system (it is called a school "system"), and if your ship is sinking, don’t ask what kind of life jacket they are throwing you.

For example, maybe the janitor can tell cafeteria not to serve a certain item anymore, because most of it is ending up in the trash. (The meal planner would never know, because all of it was served. Or the parking lot attendant who notifies the principal that the lights need to be replaced in the staff parking lot because kids shot them with a BB gun. (And the principal would never know because he leaves work before dark.) Kids know the problems; parents know the problems; teachers know the problems. Many of them have the solutions. Embrace your biggest asset, community input. (And I see Brewer doing that.)

Now, let’s look at some bigger picture solutions outside LAUSD’s job description that can help "fix" LAUSD.

So, a more immediate first thing that can be done to fix the school system starts at home. Parents need to accept responsibility and become active participants in their children’s lives. You can judge what a young kid says, and how they behave by the standards imposed on them by the parents. It’s tough to say "no" to your kids, when other parents say, "yes", or don’t say anything at all, because the kids are left un-attended.

Too many parents think it is the schools and teachers job to instill dignity, respect and discipline into their kids. BUT IT IS NOT. That is the parents’ job. The schools job is to educate kids. Help fix LAUSD by fixing your kids, so the school can do its job. (Teach them how to read, write, add, etc.) Asking your kid, "How was school today? Did you do your homework?", is not taking responsibility for your child’s education.

I know it’s tough to be a parent to your kid, these days. The high cost of housing, taxes and gas makes it hard to make ends meet, and both parents (if there are even both parents at home) have to work long hours, and travel through long traffic-jammed commutes, for not enough pay, at the end of the day.

And at the end of that day, It’s much easier to say, "yes", than argue a long protracted battle over how late a kid can stay out, or how many hours they can use myspace, youtube, ipod, xbox, or even regular old TV. And it doesn’t help when other parents refuse to do a thing to help instill discipline, morals or standards in their kids.

But you must rise to the challenge and be the leaders and role models in your kids’ lives. Parents, don't rely on the City to be your kids’ babysitters after school. Rely on each other. Spend more time talking to each other about after school activities. Do more for each other. Talk about what your kids are and are not allowed to say and do. Try and convince other parents to go along with the higher standard, so all the kids that play together lift each other up, instead of drag each other down.

So that's ONE thing the community can do to fix the schools (besides reducing classroom size, paying teachers more so we can recruit new ones, after school programs, safer streets and other things that are out of your control):

Take on more responsibility to do the job you asked for when you had a kid. Be a mentor -- to your own kids. You cannot leave the job of raising your kids and teaching them responsibility and values needed to keep them in school, graduating and productive members of society we need them to be to a school system. That’s not THEIR job, it’s YOURS. Take on the challenge. It will be almost as enriching and rewarding of an experience as myspace or YouTube.

There IS much for LAUSD to do as well, especially in the areas of management of quality and productivity as it related to operations and the administrative system itself. But the parents and kids have a long way to go before they can start pointing too many fingers at the system itself.

HOW ABOUT "JOB READY" KIDS?

How about vocations to prepare kids for today’s U.S. job market? Do you know how much carpenters, plumbers, sales people, electricians, AC/Heating, tile person, car mechanic or truck drivers make these days? ($90,000 plus.)

If high-end college type jobs have left the region and are now overseas in Asia and China, how about the vocations mentioned above, and others are jobs that you cannot export; and you cannot import. (You don’t fly in a construction contractor when you build a new condo. And you can’t import the electricians DWP is short on.)

Not everyone is meant to go to college. It is the school systems job to provide students with the basic, necessary skills to either enter the job market, go on to further vocational training, or college and more interpersonal skill training.

But to say it is the government’s job to prepare all kids for college, means that a diploma has no value as its own entity. A diploma is supposed to be the piece of paper you need to be prepared to enter the job market, not an expected requirement to enter another four-year round of expensive education to prepare you for jobs that are not available, because they have been outsourced and downsized in a new electronic era. Do all kids need to be prepared to learn Shakespeare and calculus?

Today’s school system was created in 50s era to prepare kids to conform for the manufacturing jobs that drove the U.S. economy. Everyone had to conform to the same factory jobs, along the assembly line. No uniqueness required.

Engineers make a lot of money, sales people make a lot of money, real estate agents make a lot of money. Train people for the types of jobs the big corporations need: Sales, administration; and construction of facilities, among others.

LAUSD CHARTER REFORM

Charter schools can be valuable tools to allow the community to partner with the government to help improve the quality of education for the student and be an overall asset toward improving the overall result of the State education system.

However, as in any system, there is concern for flaws that allow for the exact type of fraud, waste and abuse that ends up producing the exact opposite results that are promised (higher student achievement provided more efficiently) and ends up leaving the public system weaker than before (cream of the crop students taken by charters leaving higher percentage of "special needs" and "low-achievers" at LAUSD non-charters, which also means less number of students, then they cut the money to those schools who need the money the most).

So as LAUSD starts to approve more and more charters to help the state better educate the kids, and increase all the right numbers in all the right places…let’s make sure there is enough openness and transparency in the process so as to prevent the types of conflicts of interest and fraud, waste and abuse that intentionally, or unintentionally continues to shoot the system in its own foot, causing it to stumble out of the starting block, time and time again.

THE COMPASSION PRINCIPAL

Since ’94, LAUSD has authorized charters: To this date, there is no accountability standard according to the district. I have also heard that there is an intensive application process. Some people view charter schools as a back door policy to break up the LAUSD district.

And breaking up the district in a meaningful and efficient way would be the right step to take. It’s way too big and way to bureaucratic to operate efficiently. Besides being too big geographically, it’s too wide socio-economically. The higher performing schools in the more affluent areas seem to get the "house advantage" over the lower performers in lower economic areas. (Different needs and attentions.) But even socio-economic inequalities aside, it’s just too big a system to operate as an efficient system. But, we are stuck with this monstrosity of a system, for now.

At Green Dot Charter, applicants are required to include parent income; previous student grades; and require additional parental involvement. And some say the application process is more like a screener, skimming the cream of the crop students from the non-charter, public schools; leaving LAUSD with the special needs, and low-achieving students.

Charter schools are run by a lottery to pick students. But the application process to get into the lottery is more difficult than and Ivy League Law School (12 pages long).

What are bright kids from low-income, less-attentive/non-attentive parents to do? They are being punished because charters won’t take them, because parents won’t commit to the added time, or don’t make enough money. Why are we blaming these kids for who they are born to?

As in "special education" students, "highly gifted" students (150 and above I.Q.) is an equally distributed number across all income, social and cultural levels.

So this means there are a minimum of 5000 "highly gifted" kids in the 73% Hispanic and 11% black LAUSD district which reflects the demographic makeup of the district (including 9% white).

So what do we do about these low-income, neglected geniuses not having their uniqueness being catered to?

You have to prove that you care about kids in the way THEY want you to care about them, instead of disenfranchising them; having them drop out, and fall prey to gangs, and we lose out on qualified workers to help keep society not only competitive in a global economy, but simply ticking and functioning on a day to day basis.

If you get them interested in these vocational skills, then they will be interested enough to want to learn the basic and more advanced math that is needed for shop, or garage class. And then, that just might provide the jumpstart that will allow them to be able to go on to college, if they choose; or to directly enter the local job market with a higher level of achievement, and there for higher level of skill and value to the job market and therefore, society. DWP can’t find qualified people to do the electrical work.

This is how you reduce the dropout rate as well. Get them interested in a vocation or interpersonal skill that will create the interest to get them involved in the math, science and English skills required to pursue their dream, and you will reduce the dropout rate; reduce the crime rate; reduce the gang rate; reduce the prison population and increase the pool of qualified applicants for jobs we need like teachers, police, fire, sales, administration, and all of today’s highly-demanded jobs.

A charter lottery is supposed to be an open application process of anyone who wants to "go charter", and then the lottery is based on all applications.

According to one LAUSD "reformer/charter supporter", all the "involved parents" already pulled their kids out of LAUSD and are in private/charter schools.

So now, LAUSD will start to jump into the privatized Charter game, using public money and handing the management over to private entities. So we have to admit, we now have a two-tier education system, like cable TV. You have basic LAUSD (non-charter public school catering to special needs and English learners) and premium LAUSD (charter public school with "cream of the crop" skimmed off the district).

Instead of preparing for two school systems, all teachers, resources and efforts should go to ONE education system for all.

Is the newly elected LAUSD school board members like the zero experience as an educator, Tamar Galatzan, or even "now veteran" Monica Garcia knowledgeable on the type of school reform they are taking on?

I heard that at Green Dot, only 40%=50% of teachers are fully credentialed. In one school, only 3 out of 22 teachers are credentialed. By state law, this number must be equal to LAUSD, which is 90% credentialed across the general district.

IF THIS IS TRUE, THESE SCHOOLS SHOULD BE SHUT DOWN BY LAW!

Do these charters have the 12%-13% Special Education Classes like LAUSD? Are Charter schools skimming the cream of the crop students leaving LAUSD with the lower performers, then get to say, "LAUSD failed", while making it easier to charters to show improvement with the cream of the crop highest achievers?

And the system is set up to keep the school in constant, "need for reform" mode.

The State Lottery placed steady funding for books and supplies. So, you must wonder why you hear so many cries from students that they don’t have enough text books. Somehow, the State Lottery money is now being used for wage and benefits.

Now I support as much money for teachers as possible, and they have one of society’s most important jobs (next to the police), but I don’t think there is a need to take the kid’s book and supplies money to achieve the goal.

With a $61,000 average LAUSD salary; plus those who chose to earn more money as mentors; summer school gigs; mentoring new teachers; or simply choose to work at Radio Shack during the three month vacation you are talking $85,000 a year, plus National Board certified teachers make upwards of $100,000. (And who else making this much also gets three months off?) But they had to dip into the kids’ books and supply money because teachers were too uncomfortable at this type of salary level, for nine months work. And teachers don’t generally work as many hours as other executives and workers in this salary range, and don’t have the long "after hours", at home computer work many executives at this salary level are forced to take home everyday and over the weekend.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

People have given up on our public schools, now they want to pass the buck to charter schools. (I mean pass the buck literally and figuratively.) Although charter schools can be a welcomed blessing to the community and state (society), it is up to the community to insure that the system is providing that service in the best interest of the public, since the state, through LAUSD approval, is handing over public money to be managed and operated by private corporations (non-profit and for-profit organizations), and history has shown that in many cases, conflict of interest, fraud, waste and abuse ends up producing the exact opposite results as required by law.

More to come.

Contact: zumadogg@gmail.com
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